Your Preferred Route: Praying for God's Direction
"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." ~Proverbs 16:9
A few weeks ago I started pulling up Apple Maps every time I drive home, not for directions but to check the traffic. I started doing it because twice this past month I turned onto my usual road and found it blocked with no warning, both times due to, you guessed it, construction. I had to backtrack through streets I don't normally take. I didn't need new directions either time. I needed to know what I couldn't see from where I was.
Solomon knew that gap between the route we plan and the road we actually get: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps" (Proverbs 16:9). I know my way around this town. I don’t know what’s up ahead on it today.
James is blunter about the same blind spot. "You do not know what tomorrow will bring... Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'" (James 4:14-15). I nod along with that verse right up until I’m fifteen minutes from home, convinced I don’t need to check anything, because I’ve made this drive a thousand times before.
Here's what caught my attention about pulling up that app. Now it tells me my ‘preferred route’ home. It's not the fastest route, nor is it always the best option. It’s the one I’m used to. My daily prayer life had taken a similar direction — it had gotten repetitive. Praying the same way, for the same length of time, for the same things meant my conversation with God couldn’t take a new direction because I wouldn’t allow it. The Bible is clear: God wants us to grow beyond “preferred prayers.”
Praying for God's Direction Instead of Default Prayers
Praying for God's direction, instead of just rehearsing the same requests, is what turns a routine drive into something more.
David landed on the same thing from a different angle: "the steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way" (Psalm 37:23). Established, not just permitted. The point was never whether I know how to get home. It’s whether I’m willing to let Him reroute me off the route I default to, not just the one I already know.
When I start my car and don’t pull up my map, I've started treating that forgetfulness itself as a tell: I need to pray for direction that day.
Daily Practice: Pick one thing today you'd normally run on autopilot because you're sure you know how it goes — a conversation, a decision, a familiar drive. Before you do, pause and ask God what He sees ahead of it that you can't, even if you're certain you already know the way.
Always improve the present moment.
~Corbin Riley
So often in life I found myself asking God for things as if He were a genie in a bottle. These days, by His grace, I've learned the spiritual, physical, and communal benefit of praying: Guide me, for i am but a sheep, prone to wander astray after every shiny thing.
So often I've rerouted myself only to find myself praying for a rescue that could've altogether been avoided, had i simply prayed: Your will be done, for you are the potter, shape me, guide me, lead me in Your everlasting way.
Thank you for this reminder!